Of Monsters and Men

Heck with the Empire!

22

DEC/13

As we are leaving the town we look back and was pretty surprised that they had such large army. They’ve really taken over the town. We hope people are going to get their things back. There is not a lot of respect. Will there be a Rangwood after this?

Our plan was to range to the point the army asked us to range to and send back the militia. One of them will not want to return to the Empire army. Then we will continue onward to Hammerhold.

We have a few horses, and a cart. Nel, Irontusk, Bo, Brom, Cuthumb, Oxon, Degarius, Degarius’s cat, Astrid (Militia 1 from the town that vanished, has a spear and a shield), and Luscious (from Rangwood, and he has a bow and short sword Militia 2).

We are quarter mile out of town and then we hear a noise, sounds like someone is coming through the woods in our direction. A guy comes out and says “Brom! Brom! It is good to see you.” Brom remembers this guy vaguely, his name is Martin. Brom has gotten into trouble with this guy before. Brom says, “Good to see you, how are things going?” He starts removing his Empire clothes and says that the Empire is not for him. He asks to join us on our travel towards Hammerhold. He had overheard us talking about it, (where?). During the day we did spot a goblin scout at one point. We leave him alone and stay clear of trouble.

Night’s fast approaching, and we start to look for shelter. We find a lean-to, we leave Oxon in the covered wagon and set up a fire. Oxon starts to move around starts asking questions about what happened. It starts raining and sleeting. The weather is frightful. Oxon approaches the fire. Brom starts telling him about his demon dream and how the they felt the demon was in or near the Rangwood.

Oxon suggests if you guys are going to be holding up here around the lean-to we should do some ritual magic. Bo says the Lyssa and Serna left the group earlier. Cuthumb tells him that they would be back at the town. Eventually he listens. Oxon continutes to tell us we would need three basic items to call on the old spirits. There’s a flower that has a bleek face. Nel saw one back down the road. Oxon has a few mineral compounds on him but he also needs bat eyes or raven eyes.

Cuthumb goes looking for a bird nest. He hands a bird to Oxon. Oxon proceeds to do something with this bird to prepare the spell. Cuthumb and Martin were speaking about things particularly how the Empire sucks and to Heck with them. While that conversion is happening, Nel returns with flowers and seeks out Brom to talk about Martin, out of his earshot.

Their conversation is about weather or not they trust him. They are going to use a spell to find if someone has bad motives towards the group.

Nel, Oxon, and Brom return to the campfire and start invoking the spell. Oxon throws in the flowers and there’s a white flash. Some powder is tossed into the fire, then the bird parts. The fire roars up after Oxon throws something into the flame. Brom feels his family is the Rangers. This feeling taps into the spell. When Oxon places the final component. A pheonix leaves the fire the sparks and embers start to die out. The bird of smoke and ask fly over Cuthumb, pauses, past Martin, towards Nel. Oxon jumps up and says, “It’s on to something, there are bad, very bad intentions.” Degarius jumps up. His cat hisses. Cuthumb asks how they did this, it looks cool. The bird flutters around Nel, Nel spins with it and it flies right into the pony.

The pony starts approaching the Nel. Nel draws his sword. The pony opens it’s mouth and its mouth splits. It would intimated most people. The body of the pony starts to change shape. Nel is “Kin to Irontusk” and is still intimidated. The thing roars at Nel. Spikes start coming out of it. It’s legs get bigger, the hoofs break apart. Nel tucks behind Irontusk and pulls his spear out. Martin says, “What the hell!”. Oxon says it’s a demon! Brom had pulled his bow out when the bird flew towards Nel. Brom sees tentacles coming out of it’s side. Nel switches to the spear. Brom takes a shot with his bow. It appears to have no affect on the pony demon. A tentacle pulls the horse pull into the pony’s mouth. Cuthumb throws a javelin at its neck but it just bounces off. Iron tusk yells “Pork chop sandwichs!” to Nel. Brom asks Oxon how do we fight this thing? He tells Brom, we might not be able to it.

The pony demon charges Nel, the tentacles are all over, one hits the reins tied down one and it frees the horse and it takes off. Brom and Oxon run off yelling, “Run!” Degarius throws a dagger and the demon cries out in pain. Lucisios gets knocked into the fire. Astrid plants his spear and the demon stops for a moment. Cuthumb tries to grab the back tentacle but is unable to. Bo grabs Lucious. The pony demon take a bite out of Astrid. Nel takes swing at it, with no luck. A tenticle slashs nel and it burns. Nel tries to scoop up Cuthumb and we jump up on Irontusk. Cuthumb yells out, “Get out of there Bo!”. Cuthumb is looking back as he is yelling to see Bo getting tossed up like a rag doll. He crashes into the cart. Brom sees this too but it looks like a large body, so either Bo or a horse. Brom asks if there a way to set a ward if they distracted the beast to protect those in the ward? Irontusk runs Nel and Cuthumb back. Nel … does something. Cuthumb jumps off and runs to Bo. Brom takes a shot at it. Bo is tossed away. Cuthumb looks dumbfounded as Bo was there… but not anymore. Cuthumb drops his sword, grabs his horn, and blows it. Brom then yells to Nel to lead it away but Nel doesn’t seem to hear him. Nel gets to Bo and jumps off. Tells Bo to get on Irontusk, then tells Irontusk to meet him at the road, but take the long way. Irontusk doesn’t seem to want to leave his side. Nel starts running towards Brom and them. Irontusk is following him.

Brom goes back to the camp after the demon chases after Nel and Irontusk. He sees Degarius’s cat over and heads out from Astrids body.